UAE to stop all flights from India for 10 days from April 25 amid COVID-19 surge

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Thursday that it will ban  all its flights from India for a period of 10 days starting April 25 (Sunday) due to the massive rise in India's caseload of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The UAE is known to be the busiest route for all international flights from India. Sharing a statement, the UAE said arrival passengers from India through other countries are not allowed to enter unless they were staying for 14 days in those countries.

However, the departure and cargo flights between UAE and India will continue to operate. UAE citizens, diplomatic delegations, official delegations and flights of businessmen are the categories which are exempted from this restriction. A 10 day quarantine will be mandatory for the above mentioned categories; they will have to undergo PCR testing on the day of arrival, day 4 and on day 8 and the validity of the PCR tests before departure should has been reduced to 48 hours from 72 hours, the statement said. The test results will only be accepted from authorised labs which generate a QR code.